


Devotion

by Horny_Cultist



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Look How That Turned Out, buckle up for a long fic y'all, this started as a oneshot from a prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-02-15 21:57:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horny_Cultist/pseuds/Horny_Cultist
Summary: Azazel had been a devout follower for almost a decade now, stuck up in one of the most isolated Children of the Vault bases on Pandora. When an unknown army attacks Hecate Base during a visitation from Lord Troy Calypso himself, she and the God (sans one limb) are the only survivors. After constructing the monster of an arm that would become Troy's signature feature, she's promoted to his personal bodyguard, mechanic, doctor, and whore. All can only go well for so long before a past like hers catches up though.





	1. Chapter 1

“Our Lord Troy will be here on the hour, get that shit put away and in uniform, disciple!” I jumped, spilling the cloth full of small mechanical parts and tools onto the floor, and swore as they scattered over the tin. I turned to the door, growling, and snatched up my hooded robe, shoving it on over my head. Chicho glared at me, at the mess my project had made, and muttered, “We don't have time to clean this, come on, we just have to fucking hope our Lord doesn't notice.” With that, he turned and hurried away down the hall, already yelling at someone else.

I sighed, stood up from the chair, kicked as many of the mech pieces under the bed as I could, and hurried out of my room. He would notice, the room was Chicho’s too, and as both the highest ranking Children of the Vault official on Hecate Base, and also its leader, his rooms were to be given up to our Lord during the duration of his stay. So Chicho would be taking the second’s rooms, the second would be taking the third’s, and as nothing more than the mechanic Chicho liked fucking enough to get some added benefits, I'd be back in my bunk in the workshop, listening to Pissman Bolero snore on the bed beneath mine. In all honesty it wasn't so bad, we were only the two mechanics on Hecate, so the only ones who had the whole fucking workshop to ourselves. Pissman just fucking snored loudly, and since we were in upper Pandora, cold air pumped in through every nook and cranny. Sure, it wasn't the worst sleeping situation, but my insomnia was bad enough that sleeping with a higher up to get a little more comfort was worth its weight in gold.

The couple hundred or so disciples gathered at the entrance to Hecate, Chicho, a few more of the higher ups, and the honor guard closest, the rest of us spread out in a sort of order, the lowest of the low towards the back, going up in rank from there. Pissman and I were both a few rows back, not up with the commanders, since neither of us officially held any kind of rank, but well ahead of the psychos and ground pounders. 

“I can't fuckin’ see,” I growled, shifting and stretching again to see over the rows of Children before me, with no success. Pissman laughed. As a Nomad, he not only stood pretty well above the rest of the crowd, but also was bulked put enough to keep a fairly clear circle of intimidation around us. 

“Would you like to sit on my shoulders?” he half shouted over the cacophony of near-ecstatic excitement of the crowd. I glared at him, but couldn't keep it for long, and our grins were matched, partially feral. 

There was a booming crack, followed by a loud roaring noise as a ship, massive and dark, broke atmosphere and descended slowly towards the surface. It stopped a few hundred feet up still, and the heat of the thrusters washing over the group. I scowled, calculating quickly in my head, and signed to Pissman in the sign language mechanics just picked up on after years of working in shops too loud for human speech. “Safe, but what the hell are they thinking?”

He shrugged, signing back, “Radiation damage is your thing, I don’t know.”

I muttered under my breath, and turned back up in time to see a smaller craft drop from the ship. It plummeted towards the surface, kicked on its own, smaller thrusters, and alighted on the ground outside Hecate, hidden behind the walls of the base. The gate, a smaller, shitty ripoff of a vault door, slid to the side, and the sudden surge of excitement broke the tension and the crowd surged forward, jostling me up against other bodies. The roaring and movement of the crowd was like being a part of a wave, and I only managed to stop and hold my head up to look to the front for a few moments at a time. I was screaming at the fucking scum shoving against me, but my voice was only one of hundreds. From the snatching glimpses I got, Chicho and the other higher ups were on their knees in worship, and I could see the uniforms of the Lord’s guard, much fancier and clearly better protection than the scraps we wore on Hecate, but Troy Calypso himself always seemed to be hidden behind one fuckers body or another. Pissman found me, and we both spent several minutes pressing back at the hoards, but the fucking psychos were so wound up that it didn’t seem like we’d make much progress.

That was until the part of the crowd we were holding back slowly froze as a collective, and a strange, eye of the storm calmness descended over us. Suddenly freed, Pissman turned around, and immediately ducked to the ground. I spun around, hand instinctively reaching for the pistol at my belt, prepared to duck and fire at whatever had sent Pissman to the ground. 

“Holy fuck, Siren daddy hurt me.” The words were out before I could think to stop them, and I clapped my hands to my mouth, except that I’d actually grabbed my gun, and the metal smacking against my face split my lip open. On the ground, on his knees in worship, Pissman coughed. Troy fucking Calypso stood towering behind me, no more than a few feet away, lanky, muscular body covered in both the red Siren tattoos and a spattering of regular, dark tattoos. Behind him, Chicho looked mortified. I stood panicked, unable to move, staring up at who was essentially God, his piercing blue eyes seeming to dig into mine, the grin on his face making my heart race, face flushing darker. Just when I’d made up my mind to duck down and join Pissman on the ground, he reached out with his right hand, calloused fingers gripping my chin.

“Let's talk about that later, doll.” He let me go, and strode by, followed closely by his guards and Chicho, who looked like he’d been the one to ask his God to fuck him, face contorted in absolute, embarrassed panic. When they were gone, Pissman stood to stare at me, and I realized as he did that everyone who’d been close enough to hear, even the most unrailed of the psychos, were all staring. 

The stunned eyes were what broke me out of my panic, and I snarled, “Oh, fuck all of you!” and stormed off toward the workshop.


	2. Chapter 2

The workshop at Hecate was the highest building, set into the rock of the mountain about halfway up, while most of the buildings sat at the base. The only way into the workshop was the long, steep ramp, wide enough to drive three bandit-class runners up at a time. It was iced over, but there was a narrow stairway up the side, and I stomped up it, only glancing down over the base once. Of course, my fucking luck, Troy Calypso and his entourage were nearly directly below me, and the Siren himself glanced up at me as I watched, his feral grin growing sharper as our gazes met. My face flushed fully again, and when I reached the top, I slammed the door behind me, went to the bunks, and lay face-down on mine, debating switching my career to suicider… 

An hour or so later, I heard the workshop door open and shut, and Pissman’s shuffling footsteps. I sat up, watching him approach, and he stopped several feet away, watching me in return. “I am… so dead, dude.”

He shrugged. “It is as the duty of the Children of the Vault to give their flesh and lives for the order,” he recited, mostly sarcastic.

I sighed. Being a mechanic in the cult, well… you kept your sanity enough to recognize it as a cult, so busy building and repairing shit that initiations and rituals were usually ignored, so the constant mind-fucking just… didn't matter. And don’t take it wrong, I was a firm believer in both the cause and the power of the Calypso twins, but most who joined the Children at the lowest level were either already psychos, or quickly gave up their sanity in reverence. Even the higher ups, Chicho included, seemed to be in a daze half the time, and even though he annoyed me, Pissman and I were the only seemingly sane people at Hecate.

“Don’t get me wrong, a part of me is into the idea, and if I’m gonna get murdered, it may as well be someone that…” I gestured frustratedly towards the rest of the base. “Fucking hot, but…” I shook my head, and collapsed back on the bunk, one arm thrown over my eyes.

“Not to interrupt your, uh… crisis, but they’re doing a full inspection, and they’ll probably be here in twenty minutes.”  
I swore, sat up again, and jumped down from the bunk. “Fucking okay, uh…” I glanced around. As much as I hated to admit it, Pissman was better at keeping the workshop clean, and since I’d been spending all my off time sleeping or getting slept with, the workshop was mostly in order. I scrounged around frantically for several seconds before Pissman strode to the lockers at the foot of the bunk and pulled out my rifle. As he handed it off to me, I glared at him suspiciously. “How did you get into my locker?”  
He shrugged. “Security update a month or so ago, it reset everything, and I set all the locks to work for both of us. Didn’t realize it would reset these too.”

I sighed, slipping the rifle over my head and resting the strap over my shoulder.

As if on queue, warhorns started blaring, and an instant cacophony began. Screaming and shouting and gunshots echoed up the mountain, and Pissman and I didn’t even have to look at each other before he was pulling his shotgun out of the locker and then sprinting toward the door. I followed at his heels, rifle in hand. Before either of us could move much, however, there was a series of powerful explosions that ripped the ground out from under us and then threw it back at us. It knocked the breath out of me on the initial impact, and it happened four or five more times, each tossing me around on the ground like a ragdoll, and the lockers and boxes of tools and half-finished products tumbling to the floor. When it was over, and I got my breath back, I sat up gasping, my eyes darting around in panic.. One of the tanks that had been up on a repair dock had fallen onto where Pissman had been, and I stared blankly for a moment. As my hearing slowly returned, the sound of gunshots from outside came back as well, and I jerked to shaky legs, stumbling to the door, rifle in trembling hand. The scene outside wasn’t much better, bots and humans alike swarmed over Hecate, and the disoriented Children of the Vault, only now starting to understand what was happening, were being slaughtered in their wake. I took a deep breath, sighted down the scope, and aimed at the nearest bot…

Which was tearing off Troy Calypso’s right arm.


	3. Chapter 3

I screamed involuntarily and managed to take out the bot tearing at him before I began sprinting down the ramp. I slipped on a patch of ice almost immediately and tumbled, but unlike my fall before, I managed to tuck and protect both the gun and my limbs. It was probably the only thing that saved my life, as the moment I fired on the robot, every single other thing with a gun turned to fire on the spot where I’d been. When I reached the bottom, I popped up and fired off several shots, taking out an enemy with each one, and then darted to a somehow still-standing stack of crates nearby the Siren. I managed to drag his unconscious body back behind them before another load of guns fired on the spot where we’d both been moments before. I couldn’t spare more than a glance at him, but while his arm was still basically attached, there was no saving it. He was alive though… I turned back to return fire, but I couldn’t get off more than a few shots at a time; there were too many of them…

One of Calypso’s original guard landed beside me from somewhere, and took his turn firing back at the enemy while five more cultists formed around me. The second in command of Hecate (was her name Joja?) grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me to face her. “Get him to the workshop and seal it,” she roared at me over the noise of gunfire.

I nodded, turned, and pulled him by his good arm up and over my shoulder, but with his height his legs still dragged on the ground. Normally, his weight would probably have been too much for me, but I seemed to be having the same kind of adrenaline rush that mothers with trapped children get; he was one of my Gods after all. Joja and three Badass Nomads formed up around me, each holding a large shield with some screaming midget attached to them, and we made our way back to the ramp. There was no way to go up the stairs and keep good cover, so under fire, on an iced-over metal slope, we stumbled. It was slow going, and one of the nomads jerked and began to fall, and Joja moved to the front, firing carefully around the edge of her shield. 

When we finally reached the top, I unceremoniously dropped him in a pile on the floor, and ran back to help the others inside, but Joja turned, furious.

She shoved me back inside, pressing an ECHO into my chest as she did. “Fucking seal it!” she shrieked, and then slammed the door in my face.

While my brain was still frozen, my body sprinted to the emergency override station, and I, after years of craving to do so, slammed the massive, red button in the center. The sound of shrieking metal drowned everything else as the the the massive, multi layered metal shielding slammed into place outside, covering every bit of the exposed workshop from the outside, plunging the interior into darkness. The shooting outside continued for several minutes, then all was silent for maybe thirty seconds. The banging began, loud enough to make my ears ring at first, but growing steadily louder as more of the enemy joined in. Supposedly, Lord Tyreen had infused these defenses with both Siren powers and Eridium reinforcement, so they should hold, but…

Hecate Base was dead, I was the only surviving disciple, and the attack had been done in spite of the fact that we had a Calypso twin present, then been successful on top of that. He was alive, but only just. That thought kicked me back into gear and I pulled out my flashlight, lighting my way enough to safely make it a small door at the back of the shop. Inside was the backup generator, which sat unscathed, bolted to the floor. It groaned to life, but I could only really hear it as a vibration over the ringing outside. A single light flicked to life, the one above where the fallen tank had been, and the repair terminal next to it began its startup. I switched to the other output, and the terminal and repair light turned back off, and the general lighting in the room came to life. It was supposed to be the default, it used up less, I'd have to ask Pissman why…

Well, he was dead anyway, same with ninety-nine percent of the other people I knew and vaguely cared about. All except for literally one of my Gods, who I didn't actually know outside of worship.

Speaking of which, I needed to make sure he didn't die. Once again, a part of me thought that it would be impossible for him to die, but my rational brain had no allusions, he was still physically a human, mortal, killable, and if he died on my watch now… I'd kill myself before Queen Tyreen got here, it would be better than whatever she did to me. I plopped onto my knees on his most damaged side, feeling gingerly around the area. The only thing holding the arm to him at this point was skin, horribly twisted and already bruised to a deep purple. The force of the shoulder dislocating seemed to have fractured his ribs, and his collarbone and shoulder blade were actually broken in several different places. Even if it had been possible to get it back into place, there was too much damage, it wouldn’t heal. It had to come off. 

I stood, trying to remember where the med supply box had been, and if I was going to have to look hard in the rubble for it. Thankfully, it was tightly shut and not completely buried, only hidden under one of the mattresses that had fallen from the bunks. I dragged both box and sheets from that mattress near to where the Lord lay, cleared an area of floor in a ten by ten square, rolled out the sheets, and laid out the shit I'd need. The Lord was almost too heavy now that I wasn't in the middle of a firefight, but I got him to the surgery area, injected him with a bunch of fucking sedatives, and tied off the arm at his dislocated shoulder. It wasn't perfect, parts of the shoulder itself needed to come off as well, but it was where I needed to start. While I waited for the blood in the arm to slow, I washed my hands, sterilized the saws, took a few anti nausea pills, and then snapped on some gloves. This was gonna be gross.


	4. Chapter 4

Hours later, I sat back, knees aching, head pounding, and wiped a bloodied hand over the sweat on my forehead. The noise from outside had finally stopped about fifteen minutes ago, but it was safe to assume that they were still camped outside. Troy Calypso was missing an arm and most of a shoulder, but I'd managed to not only save most of the nerve endings, but also set the base work for a robotic arm, enough to keep everything alive long enough for me to get a confirmation that it was, in fact, what he wanted. It was the rational thing to do and he definitely was the type to be excited by body mods, but on the off chance he didn't want the arm, I was gonna wait until I knew. I moved the mattresses until they were side by side, still a fucking small bed, but it would have to be enough, and moved the Lord as gently as I could with the energy I had left. I covered him with my blanket, and then just stood, staring at his long, well structured face. 

He was… fascinating. Even if I hadn't been one of his worshipers, he was the only fucking male Siren in existence and, with his sister, had conquered half of human-occupied space. That, and he was still just fucking nice to look at. I rolled my eyes at myself, gathered up the bloodied med supplies in the equally bloodied sheet, rolled it in a ball, and shoved it in a corner, telling myself I'd deal with it later. Then I washed my hands, arms, and face at the sink, so fucking glad that the water pump was tied in with the generator. 

When all was done, I turned back, unable to hold back anymore, and went to actually touch him. Sue me, he was a God in my life, and it wasn't like I was gonna strip him to get a good look at… everything. I wasn't that low. His intact left arm was the one with the Siren tattoos, and I rubbed gently at a thin line of red, watching to see if it smeared away. It didn't. They were real and that made me nearly giddy; the doubters were wrong, I had proof now. Smiling, I moved to the three bolts at his bicep, and as far as I could tell, they were decor, serving no actual purpose other than to make me feel weak. His upper torso was mostly bandaged, and as much time as I'd spent with it, I hadn't actually gotten to, uh, appreciate it, which made me sad, so I just moved to his long, muscular, dark, tattooed stomach. The combo of being one of my Gods and the sex appeal apparently was making me excited, because upon inspecting his abs, my first thought was how much I would like to run my tongue up the center crease between the muscles, tasting the sweat and power… I mentally slapped myself down, finally moving up to look at his face. That's what I really wanted to see, and I couldn't help but reach a hand up to stroke gently over his skin. His eyebrows were usually knit in permanent, smug anger over his eyes, but as drugged and unconscious as he was, his expression was relaxed, the only lines left weret from his usual glare and grin. I ran my thumb over the line between his eyebrows, then down over one side, onto his check. I knew I shouldn't have, but it was on a similar level as with the Siren markings for me, I had to know. I pulled down on his cheek gently and the mods in his face shifted. I wasn't exactly sure of the layout, but he could split his jaw open. My face heated and I muttered, “Damn, what that tongue do?” 

And of course, his lips twitched into a small smile, and I realized that he'd been awake. I made a strangled noise, stood up, stalked to the nearest wall, and started to pound my head against it. “That's it, I'm taking a vow of silence,” I half yelled between one head smack and the next.

From behind me, I heard him mumble, “Don't, I'd find it rather disappointing.”

I turned back, face and neck burning, and then immediately ran to push him back down. “Don't sit up yet, please!” I pressed against his bandaged chest, then got immediately self-conscious and yanked my hands back.

He grinned at me, clearly still kind of stoned, and let himself back down. “Don't stop yourself now, doll, I was enjoying it.” I wanted to scream. I put my face in my hands, sat back, and pulled my knees up. He chuckled at me, but quickly grew quiet. After a minute or so, he asked, “No one else made it?”

The sudden sobering of his mood broke my embarrassment, and I moved my arms to wrap around my legs, leaning back against the wall. “No, sir. Joja and a few others died to make sure we made it up here. I feel safe in assuming that everyone else is dead.” My breaths were shaky, and I buried my face in my knees, this time in exhaustion and dread. “I'd hoped reinforcements would arrive, but it's been nearly twenty hours since the initial attack began, and I haven't received a signal saying that we're safe to leave. I haven't gotten anything, I think...” I took a shuddering breath. “I think the relay tower was destroyed. All communication in and out of Hecate is line of sight.”

He made a soft noise that I couldn't place.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I've had a busy week <3

“Did you see the sky?” I look up, confused. He was staring at me, and at my evident misunderstanding, he sighed. “Those explosions, charges were placed at points in the mine near the surface, threw debris into the air. Tyreen can't risk dropping the ship in that. They probably landed near that old dragon ship, but they'll have to make it here by land.”

I nodded, calculating as much as I knew about blast cones, honestly not that much, but I agreed with him on that being the closest possible safe landing spot. With northern Pandora’s shit ass terrain, even by Catch-a-Ride and tank, it was a several day trek. As I thought about it more, my face twisted into a scowl. “Traitors in the mining ops, then.”

He nodded, raising one eyebrow at me. “You wouldn't happen to know about that, would you?”

The absolute threat in his voice made my heart skip a beat, but I met his gaze and shook my head, gesturing around the workshop. “I'm a mechanic, never really talked to those guys.”

The eyebrow didn't lower, but his eyes flicked briefly down at his left shoulder. “A mechanic who knows how to amputate?”

I shrugged. “I’m the closest thing Hecate has to a doctor. And a demolition specialist. And bio-engineer, whore, banker, tattoo artist.” I shook my head. “Hecate had a lot of niches to fill, I covered most of them, and learned the rest while I was here.” He smiled, and this time it looked a little less sloppy; he'd need painkillers soon…

“Jack of all trades, huh?”

I shook my head. “Phrase doesn't really apply, I'm the best damn sniper this side of the hemisphere. I'm just good at adapting.” He watched me intently for several seconds, and the embarrassment came back in a rush. I stood quickly, went to the medical supply box, and pulled out two syringes and a bottle of small pills. I set them down next to him, moved to the fallen fridge, and pulled out a bottle of fresh water. The insides were a mess, and half the alcohol bottles were shattered, but we had enough food just in here to last a week, not to mention the boxes of emergency rations in the room next to the generator closet. When I got back, he was inspecting the syringe that would stave off the decay around his missing arm. I sat next to him, picking up the other syringe, the painkiller, and guided it gently into the veins in the crook of his arm. Then I took the other from his hand, and pressed it into the tough skin of his bicep, a few inches above the middle bolt. He didn't flinch, but I could tell he didn't like needles. I moved slowly, taking two pills out of the bottle and cracking open the water.

He glanced up at me, a sly smile pulling at one corner of his lips. “Typically I'm against strange women drugging me, but I'll let it pass this time.”

I couldn't help but smile back a little at that, and pressed the pills gently at his mouth. He guided them in with his split tongue, totally not intentionally letting the soft flesh run over my fingertips as he did. I shuddered and moved to lift his head onto my thigh, handing him the water and helping him guide it to his mouth. His arm shook a little, but he got enough of the water into his mouth to swallow the pills. After a minute or so of him sipping at the water, I moved to get up, but he put the water down and grabbed my arm in a flash.

“Stay where you are, disciple, your Lord is comfortable.” I shuddered again, but stopped trying to get up, and sat back, able to relax for the first time in almost a day now. He didn't let go of my wrist. “Oh, and by the way, doll, I want you to make me a temporary arm while we're here.”

I made a soft, confirming noise, and leaned back with a sigh that was a lot heavier than I intended. There was a sound outside like someone firing a cannon, and then the whole room shook, most of what was left upright toppling to the floor. Troy jumped a little, or maybe I just flinched that hard, but I was just so tired of hearing explosions… “I don't know if it will hold,” I murmured, fists clenched tightly.

He laughed. “My sister designed those shields, doll. They don't fall unless she or that terminal says they do.”

I nodded, leaned back, and tried to rest. The cannon fire went on and on and on, and I couldn’t drown it out no matter how hard I tried. I’d managed to space out for maybe an hour or so, enough that my eyes didn’t feel like they were going to fall out of my head, but I was hungry as shit. I glanced down at Troy, who was asleep, and I realized that I'd been stroking his hair absent-mindedly. I hadn't noticed, but now that I was paying attention to it, his hair was softer than I would have guessed. Carefully, I extracted myself from under him, sliding a pillow over to replace my thigh. Getting my arm back was the hard part, his long fingers still gripped tightly even though he was dead-ass, drugged asleep. I finally managed to slip him, and moved to my desk, pulling out several blueprints. Back in the day, before the Children of the Vault, I was building and replacing limbs every week, but in the years since, I'd fallen out of practice for the most part. Hell, I was pretty sure the box of hydraulic components that were designed specifically for limb replacements had been in the same part of the workshop that Pissman would occupy probably until the end of time. 

Fuck, I really hoped the body wasn't going to start stinking…

Before I started my search for building material, I went to the toppled-over fridge and grabbed myself a protein bar and a beer, both of which sounded disgusting to my roiling stomach, but I had to eat something. The beer was just because I wanted it, and no one could tell me no. The protein bar was nasty as ever, sweetened sawdust packed into a rectangular shape, but after several minutes of nearly retching, my stomach had worked enough to start digesting. I moved around the shop, and it started as just looking for specific parts and tools, but the more I worked, the more I realized that, especially since we may be trapped in here for several days, I may as well get at least some of the shop functional. I pulled myself up onto the platform where my mattress had been, surveying the workshop with the same sort of exhausted dread that I’d experienced before amputating Troy’s arm. 

All was quiet now, even the cannon fire had stopped, and with the outside silent, my mind had the power. I started to cry, and while I told myself that I really needed to get up and keep moving, I felt myself lower to the cold, uncomfortable platform, curling into a pathetic, fetal ball. How many times was this going to happen before I couldn't take it anymore?


	6. Chapter 6

“What's your name?” I paused, drawer half shut; that hadn't been the question I'd been expecting. When I turned, Troy was sitting exactly where he'd been before, back to the wall, but he seemed to have forgotten the protein bar and water he'd been slowly consuming over the past hour or so since he'd woken up. His icy eyes watched me with an intensity that made my fingers shake a little every time I met his gaze, and I looked down quickly, shoving shut the drawer and moving to the one above it. “Azazel.”

From behind me, he snorted. “That what your parents named you?”

The smirk that pulled up my lips was tight and uncomfortable. “Nope,” I sighed. This drawer didn't have what I was looking for either, I was gonna need the ladder soon. “Picked it myself when I was about, oh, I don't know, seventeen? Thought it was cool, and this was just after Lilith started blowing up the news feeds, so a demon name was…” I trailed off with a shrug. 

Bless whatever mercy there was in the universe, the next drawer had what I was looking for. I hefted the box of hooks, wires, and plate metal into my arms with a grunt, and waddled carefully over to the bed, managing to drop it next to him without it landing on either of his legs. The box did crack though. “Ugh, fuck!” The sudden drop of the weight made me fall stumble back on my ass, and Troy fucking laughed at me. I sat, panting for a few seconds, then pushed myself up with a low growl, massaging the part of my ass that had fallen on some thankfully-safe detritus. “Oh fuck you!” I snapped at the still chuckling Siren. The cold weight of dread dropped on me again as he stopped, his jaw tightening. “I-I’m sorry, I…” I waved my hands agitatedly. “I don't have much practice with, uh, well, reverence.” Neither of us moved, but my frantically beating heart was telling me that my best bet was to start running, like there was somewhere to hide.

He shrugged after about a billion years, and shot me a tired smile. “Honestly, it's just nice to have someone who isn't cowering every time I turn my head.”

I shook my head, moving back to the box to pull out a bundle of wires attached to a box with a tiny screen. “I thought that's exactly what I was doing, but okay. This might hurt.” He was tall enough that I didn't have to bend much to check his shoulder, even with him sitting with his back to the wall. I removed the bandages slowly, pretending that I didn't feel aware of his eyes tracking over me, but hoo boy, it was like standing next to a massive electric coil.

He made small hissing noises as more and more of his bruised chest was exposed, but other than that he was content to quietly watch me work. When the last of the bandages fell away from him, he looked over at the metal replacement shoulder I'd thrown together and sneered. “This is shit.”

A spike of hot anger shot through me. “Well fuck, it's almost like I'm working in a limited environment or something.” His eyes changed, and the indignation and fury there normally would have made me drop and beg for forgiveness, but shit. Instead of breaking the eye contact, I moved in front of him, crouching until we were at the same level. “When we get out of here, I'll build you the best fucking arm you've ever seen, you won't even realize that you lost it in the first place, but until then I'm gonna do what I need to do, and you're gonna be fucking happy with it!” Oops… I could hear his teeth grinding, and the muscles in his neck were taught with barely restrained violence, but if I backed down now… actually, maybe it would be better if I did, he looked like he wanted to snap my neck. I broke eye contact first, biting on the tip of my tongue, and took a deep breath. Without saying anything else (because it probably was going to be snarky and thus lead to my death), I moved to the partially dented metal shoulder, and started to plug the wire box into the outputs of the device. Seventy-seven plugs, and fuck, this was just the basic test machine, how the hell had I done this as a living? 

I was so distracted with figuring out which cable went where that I didn’t notice him moving until he was already lifting up on my shirt, eyes fixated.

“Is that a bite mark?”

I swore, jumping back and hastily pulling my shirt down. “I thought that would have faded by now,” I said, exasperated, pressing at the skin on the back of my right hip. It stung a little as I did, guess it was still bruised. He still looked kind of pissed, but he was smirking a little.

By the time I got it all put together I'd calmed enough that my face and neck didn't burn as much, but I still wasn’t going to look over at him. As the fake nerves and blood vessels connected to him engaged, the small screen booted to life… And immediately started throwing error codes. I swore, smacking the box, and when that didn't work, I picked it up and scrolled through the diagnostics, disabling a few lines of code at a time before it made a soft pinging noise, and began to load the info I'd need. “That reminds me,” I muttered, standing up and moving to the med box. What I was looking for wasn't there, and I groaned, remembering that I'd left it under Chicho’s bed with the remains of the mini-mech I'd been building. There was no helping it, I'd just have to be careful. I grabbed a roll of elastic rope, the same roll I'd cut from to tie off his arm, and snipped another length off of it, tying it with my right hand and my teeth around my left shoulder.

“Don't cut off any of your limbs until you replace mine,” he growled.

I paused at the exhaustion in his voice, and finally turned to look at him. His skin was ashen, which, yeah, duh, of course it was, but the circles under his eyes were harsher, and he looked like he was half a corpse when he shouldn't look more than kind of sick. I frowned. “I, uh… are you alright?” He shook his head, but didn't bother to say anything else. I gestured at my left arm, which was starting to slowly turn purple. “I have super high Eridium content in my bloodstream. No one knows why. I had a machine that could run a blood flush and extract most of it out, but…” I shrugged toward the walled-off outside. When I turned back, he had a gleam in his eyes that I really didn't like. “What?”


	7. Chapter 7

Troy Calypso grinned at me and stood with a grunt, the testing box swaying on its wires. I took an instinctive step back. “Take that shit off your arm and come here, disciple.” My tongue was pressed to the back of my teeth, but I untied the band, not taking my eyes from him. My stomach was flipping, my mind screaming at me that I needed to flee, but I'd been ordered to go to him, and despite my outburst, I was His worshipper. I moved slowly to him, looking down, and stopped a foot in front of him, heart pounding. He reached to me, making me flinch, but his calloused hands moved gently over my throat, thumb pressed to the frantic pulse just below my jaw. “Do you know how my powers are refilled?” His voice was low, a threat, and it made my heart picked up its pace.

“I always just supposed that Queen Tyreen transferred it to you,” I breathed, voice pressed thin by his fingers, by the fear and, annoyingly to the rational part of my brain, arousal. He made a pleased sound, pulling up on my neck until I faced him. His eyes were dull, empty of anything recognizably human except for a sly hunger, his focus down to a single thing: me. 

“That's one way,” he murmured, tilting his head down to mine, lips peeling back from teeth, more of them sharpened than I expected. I took a shuddering breath. “The other is just to consume Eridium. Everyone who was on Pandora when the first vault opened has a little running through them. But you…”

The only warning I got was his grip on my neck tightening before he picked me up, turned, and slammed me back against the wall. It knocked the breath out of me with a gasp, and I clawed desperately at his hand, trying to kick him. He snarled, lashing forward, and I managed to get my breath back in time to scream as his fangs dug into my neck. It wasn’t the worst pain I’d ever experienced, but that really didn’t mean much. He ripped his head back, tearing at me, exposing more blood, and he bit back down again. It fucking hurt, and then cold started to pour into me from the wound, numbing my body and my mind more and more with each frantic heartbeat. My screams turned to nothing more than gasps and whimpers, and I felt myself slide down the wall as he lowered us both to the ground. I thought his teeth were still in my neck, but I felt soft, numbed, and I only noticed partially as I lifted my arms to wrap around him. His hand moved away from my throat, and I was colder without it, but his arm curled around me, pulled me closer, and I didn’t feel cold for very much longer.

~

When I woke up, I was on the makeshift bed, starfished over both mattresses. My head spun, I felt like shit, like the worst hangover I’d ever had, but… I was alive. I pushed myself up with a groan, and the effort nearly made me vomit, but I got upright, blinking burning, blurred eyes. Troy sat, back to the wall where he’d been before, where he’d, uh… fed from me, eyes closed, breathing slowly, but the red markings on his exposed skin glowed brightly, and looking at them made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, like I was in an electrical storm.

“Fuck, you were right,” he drawled, and I started.

“I thought you were asleep,” I mumbled, hauling myself to my feet and stumbling to the fridge, seriously regretting the beer from earlier. Alcohol content was a lot stronger if you had less blood, and I was somehow managing to run into literally everything on the way there. “Right about what?”

From behind me he gave a shuddering laugh, and I looked back, balancing on the open door of the fridge. His eyes were open now, staring into me, the usual icy blue replaced to match the crimson tattoos. He was smiling, and it made my sore heart flutter. “You have a lot more Eridium in your blood than the average psycho; I took more than I needed.”

His voice had a kind of electricity to it, a thrum that made me want to listen to him and nothing else. Shit, no wonder this guy could co-run a cult. I blinked, clearing my head a little more, and grabbed a water bottle, holding it up so he could see. “You want one?”

He shook his head, the grin widening. “I’m good, doll.”

I nodded, shut the fridge, and leaned back against it, letting the water fill my mouth and dribble down over my chin and neck. Which reminded me. I clapped my free hand to my throat. It was tender, but other than that, normal, as in not shredded to shit. I glanced suspiciously at him, dropping the emptied bottle into a nearby trash bin. I’d heard of the power of Sirens to heal, but… well, it really didn’t matter much. “I thought you were, uh…”

“Gonna kill you?”

I nodded, biting nervously at the skin on the inside of my mouth.

He stood up without using his arm and shrugged. “You haven’t built my arm yet.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. To my relief, he didn’t squash me. In fact, his smile actually turned a little less predatory.

“And to be totally honest, I kind of started feeling sick.” He sighed, and a curious glint lit up his eyes, which I now realized were dimming to a strange purple. “Doll, I don’t think you understand how much of you is… contaminated. I don’t even know how the fuck you’re alive.”

An old, uncomfortable hurt closed up my throat and I looked down, trying to regulate my breathing. I think he realized that he’d made me uncomfortable, because he changed the subject.

“So, the arm.”

I nodded, wiping a hand over my mouth and glancing around the workshop, trying to remember where I’d been. The wire box was still plugged up to his shoulder, he seemed to have forgotten it, and I moved to him, picking it up and inspecting the tiny screen. It had finished the diagnostic run, but the blood tests results said they were corrupted. I smirked, disconnecting the box from the mess of cables and hooked it into the computer station. USB. Old but reliable. I pulled up my ECHO, already set to receive data coming in from the station, and scrolled to the blood test results. It took me less than a minute, and I only had to really experiment with the last line of code before the data came up, uncorrupted, familiar. 

“Booyah,” I muttered, hooking my foot through the bar of a nearby stool and hauling it upright and under me in one smooth motion. “Alright, okay, well.” I turned back to him, a little embarrassed. “Look, what do you want me to call you? Like, I'm good with, you know, Lord Troy, Lord Calypso, my Almighty Siren King, I'm good with all that, but I…” I trailed off, one hand moving in lazy circles as I tried to think of the right way to phrase it. “I tend to try to keep a certain level of casual in my shop. I work better that way. I even used first names for the Commanding Officers if they were okay with it it.” I grinned, giving him a knowing look. “To their faces I mean.”

He looked a little confused by the question, and the expression was surprisingly cute on him. He sucked in on his lower lip, and his eyes got a little wider, kind of distant. He shrugged with his hand, making a clicking noise with his tongue that I was pretty sure was involuntarily. “Just… Troy is fine, I guess.”

I nodded, turning back to the screen. “Oookay Troy, the good thing here is that since you took a bunch of my fucking blood, and my body is just a complete shitshow, I know how to program around the Eridium.” I held up the box, still plugged in. “So this, this is the PRX-2300 model, the last ones made before Hyperion bought out the company and made them super shitty. The only issue is these were all made before the first vault opened, before Eridium was a common element. So, yeah, for the average psycho, that isn't really an issue, the Eridium content in the average Pandoran isn't all that high, but for you and me, the sensors start freaking out because there's a lot of something they don't recognize.” I moved back to the ECHO, scrolling through another list. “So yeah, thankfully your composition is close enough to mine that I knew how to work with it. Looks like your white blood cell count is kind of high, but that's not abnormal.” When I looked at him again, his eyes were a little glazed over, and I blushed. “Sorry, I, uh, talking out loud helps the process, everyone here just dealt with it.”

He shook his head. “No I just… didn't realize what an actual fucking nerd you were.”

I watched him cooly for a second, then rolled my eyes. “I'm good at what I do.” I pulled out the blueprints out again, scouring through them. I knew I didn't have any of the parts listed, but I had a general idea loading in my head, I just needed to figure out how it would work. I pulled on the roll of paper hanging from the wall, starting a general sketch. The main issue was that it would have to be big, I’d be building it from mostly scrap, and while I had a bunch of random parts, I knew for a fact there wasn’t enough for a small, functional limb. I had a few things in mind that might work, but I’d have to find them first. I tapped the pencil on the desk a few times, dropped it, and spun on the stool. “Which is not cleaning.”

He made a expression caught between disgust and confusion. “Was it like this before?”

“No! Well, not like, yesterday. A while back. Before they hired the other guy.” I held my hands up in mock surrender. “Look, I’ve never been good at keeping a clean shop.” I hopped down from the stool, trying to think where Pissman would have stored the three mech arms he’d been working on, they were a good start. “Thing about my messes though? I knew where everything was.” There had been a set of massive shelves by the wall next to the desk. Bad enough that it had toppled to the floor, but it had also been this cool mech thing that rotated which shelf was on bottom so you'd never need to get a ladder. It had been a good idea at the time, Pissman and I had spent three weeks building it, but now it was just a tangled monument of irony. I waded into the mess, testing each step I took like it would explode if I wasn't careful. It might, I had no fucking clue.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough oral sex ahead y'all (and I'm realizing the more I write this that I may need to revise the tags somewhat, this is the first work I've posted since I was like, twelve and on Wattpad, so I'm sorry if I end up changing things a lot, feedback and tips are SO appreciated)

“Okay, try it again.” Troy managed to twitch the fingers of the mech, but nothing more. I turned and kicked the wall. “God fucking dammit!” I stormed back over to the arm, lifting it from the housing and started unplugging it from his shoulder. “Piece of fucking shit, I hate Dahl tech, guns are decent, but I’ve never had as much of an issue with any other loader arms.” I continued for several minutes, grumbling curses under my breath the whole time.

After two and a half days spent working non-stop on the arm I was ready for a lucky break, but not only had two of the arms been so mangled that synching them with a nerve relay would have taken an extra week, but the one that was functional was just kind of a piece of junk. It was exhausting, and I hadn’t slept at all. But this wasn’t the longest shift I’d ever worked, I could do more, had to do more. Troy’s patience seemed to be wearing thin, he didn’t seem like the type to enjoy being in one place for too long, and I wanted to give him as few excuses to be annoyed with me as I could; I’d given him enough as it was. I was just scared, there was no point in denying it. He could kill me in a heartbeat, he already almost had, and a part of me was determined to prove my usefulness, the thought of what would be done to me if I failed gnawing at my stomach. 

As he moved away I tried to move the junk back to resting on the table, but the entire thing shifted and slid off, crashing to the floor and only narrowly missing my feet. “Fuck!” I screamed, slamming the heel of my boot into it. I picked up the wrench nearest to me, turned, and hurled it at the wall. It bounced off with an almost comical clang and I had to duck out of the way of its return. Before I could accidentally hurt myself, or god forbid Troy, I clenched my fists so tightly my knuckles creaked and sat down on the stool, lowering my head.

“How long has it been since you slept?” He was good at unexpected questions, but I was so furious that I had to grit my teeth from snapping.

“Not since you…” I rubbed at my neck agitatedly. “Ate.” When I looked up at him, his expression was calm, but I could see something brewing in his eyes.

“So, for an hour, three days ago. And before then?” 

I shrugged, not able to stop the eye roll. “The night before you got here. Four days ago.” He nodded, and looked pointedly between me and the bed. I flushed, half shame, half annoyance. “Look, I just want to get this working, I can rest after that.” I reached down, hauled up the arm, and pulled apart the half-assembled plating. That last rush of adrenaline had eaten up half of my remaining energy and trying to focus on the wiring set my vision to spinning and my head to pounding. I swore, burying my head in my hands, trying to calm my breathing without passing out. 

Sudden warmth at my back made me gasp, and Troy’s chest vibrated with his low voice. “And if I ordered you to rest?”

I opened my eyes, suddenly bloodshot, rubbing at my lips. “I mean, I could try, but…” 

“But?” he urged, leaning down until his mouth rested by my ear. “I asked you a question, disciple,” he breathed.

I shuddered, mouth working for several seconds as I tried to figure out what to say. “I, uh…” Fuck it, I couldn’t embarrass myself more than I already had. “I can’t sleep without orgasming first. Sex, masturbation, doesn’t matter.” I stood, turning to face him, but I kept my eyes down, gripping the edge of the table in shaking fingers. He chuckled, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore, the flush so strong that it burned my neck and ears. 

“That’s cute, you’re that much of a sex addict?”

I just nodded, shifting from one foot to the other. I jumped as he moved, his fingers gripping my chin and forcing my face up to his. I met his gaze, heart pounding. His eyes were full of the same hunger that had been there before he fed from me, and the fear must have been obvious on my face because he laughed quietly.

“If you want it, disciple, all you have to do is ask.” 

I shivered. “I don’t, I mean, if you d-don’t want to-”

“Anyone that asks me to hurt them as an introduction deserves a test run, doll.”

I thought my face had run out of room to blush, but I was wrong. I nodded.

“Beg for it, for your pain. Beg for your pleasure. Let me hear your devotion,” he growled, and then sank his teeth lightly into my neck, arm sliding down to hold me against him.

I gasped. “Please, Lord Troy, l-let me…” He pulled me up until I was balanced on the edge of the desk, moved his now free hand up, and grabbed a fistful of my hair, pulling my head back to bare more of my throat. Without thinking about it, I brought my legs up to wrap around his waist, pulling him further against me. “Please, please make me cum, fu-” The last word was cut short by a short, breathy gasp as he bit down harder, shifting his hips against mine. I could feel him, and I shifted one hand between us to pull against the buckle of his belt. His hand shot down to grab my wrist, and he pulled back, clicking his tongue disapprovingly.

“Don’t be too hasty, little disciple. I wasn’t done tasting you.” He pushed me back onto the table a few inches more, and I moved mech parts and tools hastily out of the way as he pressed me back until my shoulders were up against the wall. Then he took my other wrist, my hands small and pale in his, and held them against the wall over my head. “Hold still,” he murmured.

The Siren markings on his exposed flesh began to glow, and a sensation like accidentally grabbing an exposed power cable shot through me from my wrists. My body twitched and locked up, but my mind could only focus on the beautiful, fierce power surging through him. It called to something within me, some deep, old respect; mankind didn't experience power like this often, but when it did, it was best to obey those who had it. He moved back, gazing down at his handiwork, a small, sly smile pulling at the corners of his lips, eyes glowing a bright, shifting crimson. My wrists were bound above me to the wall with lines of energy glowing the same red as his eyes and tattoos, and I tested against them. They didn’t fucking budge. I felt suddenly exposed, half my ass and my legs dangling off the table, undershirt riding up, leaving my stomach bare.

Troy took my chin in his hand, smiling almost warmly down at me, and murmured, “There, that’s better.” He pressed his lips to mine, fingers sliding down under the edge of my shirt, a contrast to my cool skin.

I wanted him, I needed him, but every time I tried to deepen the kiss, he would bite my lip until I stopped squirming, and when I tried to thrust my hips against his, he grabbed my waist with an iron-strong grip and held me still, neither of which made me less desperate, which was probably the point. He tracked his lips slowly down from my lips, over my jaw, neck, collar… He paused when he reached the undershirt, just gently kissing and biting and sucking at the skin just above my breasts, and he slipped his hand between my legs.

“Ah, T-Troy, please-” My breathing was short and sharp, and had a slight vocalization with every exhale. His only reply was to undo my pants. He started to pull them down, but my boots were in the way, and he spent a few seconds cursing under his breath to get them off. They were tossed to the side, and my pants followed a second later. He straightened, eyes locked to mine in, expression smug and predatory, and slipped his fingers down to press against me. Even if I’d wanted to stop the moan, I couldn’t have; his fingers moved in slow circles around my clit, then down, right against it, he could just... 

He chuckled, finally moving up to face me, and slipped his hand away, eliciting a smaller, disappointed sound. “Fuck, you’re wet,” he muttered, smirking lazily, but his eyes still glowed, only a little duller now. “But I don’t think you’ve begged enough.” Then he moved down, past the undershirt, and shifted my legs up onto his shoulders.

I froze in panic. “Doesn’t that hurt?” 

He straightened slightly and laughed. “I am on a lot of painkillers.” He started to kiss softly at my thighs, biting gently, and it sent shock waves of pleasure shooting through me, making me writhe against the bonds.

“God, fuck,” I gasped, body desperate for him, but even with only one arm to hold me down I was too weak. “At least be more rough with me.”

I felt his lips twitch into a smirk. “Kind of ironic saying ‘god’ while I fuck you, isn’t it?” His lips brushing against my skin made each breath short and shuddering, and he moved closer, leaving a trail of tingling skin up my thigh. I thought for a moment that he was going to press into me, but he turned his head and started to kiss down the other thigh, going more slowly this time. The groan that came out of me was high, pleading. “And I thought I told you to beg, not boss me around.” He bit into my thigh, hard, fangs and all, and I screamed, back arching.

“Fuck, you asshole, just fuck me already!” His teeth only dug in deeper. “P-please, I fucking need-” The pain worsened, and I’d never wanted anything this badly. “Please, fucking use me!” 

He hummed contentedly, slowly drawing back, meeting my eyes and licking the blood from his teeth. “That’s better.”

The rush of euphoria made the pain in my leg all but forgotten. Finally. His mouth was hot, and the pleasure was so electric that it almost hurt. That split fucking tongue was a new sensation to me, and I writhed, needing more, needing him to go faster. I felt him smirk, but he picked up the pace, finally pressing into me, eliciting another high cry. It had been a few days, and sleep deprivation did nothing for my self control. My thighs were trembling, every exhale of my frantic breaths had a slight vocalization to it, and I wouldn’t be able to hold it back for long. 

“T-Troy, fuck, I’m-” I expected him to tell me to wait, to beg to finish, but instead he sped up. It started crashing over me, and I didn’t even try to stop it, legs trembling, each breath shorter and more desperate than the last. The break was so intense and I was so tired that I blacked out for several seconds, sinking in a void of ecstatic, warm sensation. 

When I was aware of my body again he was just pulling back from me to stand. I tried to focus, to say something, but my vision was down to a dark tunnel and I was still gasping. I heard him chuckle, but he sounded muffled and far away. There was a rushing sensation that lasted for a few seconds, and then I was pressed down into softness. The bed, he must have carried me.

“Rest, disciple.” His voice was a deep, soothing rumble, somewhere nearby, but I wasn’t able to focus enough to figure it out. “I need you conscious and two hands to fuck you the way I want to.”

I managed out a soft, affirmative purr before everything slipped away.


	9. Chapter 9

I’d never been good with after-bed talk. Granted, I’d slept for thirteen hours, not even waking up when Troy slid himself onto the bed with me halfway through my rest cycle, so it was more like I’d forgotten to sneak out after a one night stand. At least before he’d stuck to the other end of the shop where I could block out his presence while I was working, but now he was sitting on the table a few feet away from me, watching me fiddle with the network of nerve wiring in the arm. 

“How much longer?” he asked for the fourth time in an hour.

It should have annoyed me, but it could have been worse, and I literally did have an obligation to answer him. “I need to solder this other power supply socket in, then I need to set the hydraulics to run off it specifically. I think trying to run them and the nerves off one supply was straining it, hopefully this fixes it. Should be…” I tapped the soldering iron to the plate a few times, then slid the housing into place over it. It locked automatically. “Another hour or so.” 

He groaned, leaning his head back against the wall and blowing a clump of his dark hair up out of his face.

I scowled. “I’m doing my best.” 

“I know,” he sighed, almost whining.

I rolled my eyes. That was the biggest thing; the moment he’d gotten comfortable around me enough to drop the whole God King act, he turned into a giant fucking toddler. He kept asking me questions, he wanted more of the food and alcohol that I was carefully rationing, he even bounced his legs constantly like he had too much energy. Maybe it was because everyone else I knew was dead, but it was kind of endearing. At least, it had better be just that, getting romantically and sexually attached to anyone was a bad idea for me, let alone a fucking Calypso. 

True to my word, an hour later I was fitting the arm back into place, and I was pretty sure it might actually be near completion now. It rested on the table and I stuck one of the empty alcohol bottles between the unmoving fingers and gave him a thumbs up. He did what everyone new to prosthetic limbs did, straining his entire body for a movement that less than a week ago was second nature. The bottle exploded in an instant as the fist compressed. “Booyah! Okay, now open it slowly, one finger at a time.” I moved closer to watch the hand move. It all seemed synched enough. “Alright, check the joints.” The wrist moved fluidly, but when he tried to move the elbow, he was grunting with effort. I cursed, moving to adjust the pressure on the joint. He tried again, and the piston moved easily. The housing was a little bent, I could hear it, but it was functional. “So the shoulder is just going to kind of suck? Like, shoulders in general are a disappointment of the human form in my opinion, and I’ve had this idea for a shoulder set up on this cool sixteen-point swivel actuator.” I waved my hand. “Anyway, the shoulder will just suck. Get me somewhere with any actual equipment, I can build you something better, should I get it attached?” I looked up at him, waiting for an answer.

“Nerd alert,” he sang, teasing, eyes full of mischievous glee. I grinned right back, grabbing the bolt gun and started to assemble to shoulder housing. It only took a few minutes, again, shoulders were just so inelegant, and soon he was up and hobbling around the shop, testing the weight. 

I watched, lips pursed as he paced. It could look cool, it needed some body work, and fucking shoulders, but it was just so massive that he was counter-balancing for the weight and bumping into everything he walked by. Maybe when I had better equipment I could take off some of the weight, that piston that moved the elbow was kind of extra, but that depended on…well, a lot. 

“I like it.” He was back at it again with the unexpected talking, and it took my distracted mind a moment to realize what he’d said.

“Wait, what?”

He turned to me, raising both arms as much as he could. It seemed to only strain him a little bit. “I said I like it.”

“It’s ridiculous,” I scoffed, then noticed a wire that was trying to escape its casing, and moved to push it back behind the metal. “It’s so heavy and bulky, doing literally anything will be a pain in the ass.”

“And I think it looks fucking awesome. Like, shit, I’ve been looking for a new mechanic, my last few, well…” He grinned down at me, and my neck started to itch. “They don’t typically last very long.”

I gulped, and opened my mouth to reply when terminal built into the wall crackled to life with an incoming signal, and Tyreen Calypso’s voice rang through the workshop.

“Troy? Oh, fuck, you’d better be alive you fucking asshole, Troy?” She sounded frantic, desperate.

Troy and I only had to share one look before we were both rushing to the terminal, slapping at the panel to accept the incoming transmission.

“Tyreen, hey, Ty, I’m okay!” he yelled as soon as we were live. I took a step back, letting him do the talking. The moment he’d heard her voice his entire manner had changed. He’d gone pale and he was gripping both sides of the terminal’s screen like it could save his life.

Tyreen made a choked sound and I realized that she must have been crying. “Troy, holy shit, what happened? Why the fuck didn’t you call me?” It was strange hearing her like this. In every broadcast and LiveScream I’d ever watched Tyreen was solid, smarmy force, rambling cooly on about whatever took her at that moment, but now she sobbing into her ECHO in near hysterics.

I was even more shocked when Troy spoke back, his voice consoling, so gentle that I had a brief moment of dysphoria. “Ty, Ty, I’m sorry, I’m okay, I promise. How long until you get here?” 

She took several deep breaths, and I recognized it as the kind of breathing you do to hold back from vomiting. “Ugh, we can see the workshop, is that where you are? There's a few mechs outside, we should be there in twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm there, Ty. Oh, and I got us a new mechanic.” 

The snort of a reply still kind of sounded like a sob. “How long you gonna keep this one alive?” 

The connection dropped and Troy turned back to me, eyes harsh enough to make me take a step back. “You're gonna have to pretend you didn't hear that.” 

“Oh,” I laughed nervously. “That was the plan, trust me. Are you gonna tell her about…” I gestured at the arm.

He tried to shrug it off, but I could feel the anxiety pouring off from him. “She'll deal.” He straightened, a composure coming to him that I hadn't seen since he'd entered Hecate, and his lips split into the same smirk he'd given me after I'd accidentally called him ‘Siren daddy’ (and every other time I'd said something he liked). “So get your shit together, disciple. I'm tired of this shit hole, and I'm sure as fuck not sticking around to wait for you.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey sorry for the wait guys! Thank you all so much for reading and for the kudos (? I don't know AO3 lingo, sorry)! I spent the last week moving and starting a new job, and internet has been spotty with me, so yeah, I just didn't get around to posting this. 
> 
> This marks something of a milestone for me as an author, I've never managed to write more than five or six consecutive chapters of ANYTHING, and now I'm up into double digits? That being said, not only am I pretty far ahead in this, but I've got quite a plan unraveling (I said long fic, I meant it).
> 
> But anyway, without further ado, here it is: Chapter 10!

I honestly didn’t have much that I cared about, my motto was to remain as bug-out ready as possible at all times. Other than my ECHO, two variants on the same outfit, a few tools, my customized ammo bag, the remaining alcohol in the fridge, and my trustworthy Maliwan sniper-rifle, I was good to leave everything else. Troy and I stood side by side in front of the door, listening to the chaos of fighting outside, almost a relief after nearly a week of silence. My bag was over my shoulders, rifle in hand, not expecting to have to fight, but prepared for it. He’d taken the whole gun barrel from the fallen tank and was holding it idly in the robotic hand like a massive bat. I tried to keep focused on the outside, but he kept shifting agitatedly, rolling the pipe between the metal fingers, and I really wanted to watch the mechanisms move, figure out how I could improve on them.

“How do I look?” The words were casual, but there was an edge to them I couldn't place. 

I gave him a once over, then shrugged, half turning back to the door. “Like you've been stuck in the same room for a week and had an arm ripped off.” His laugh was loud and sincere, and my face heated a little. I moved the gun to hang from its strap in my right elbow and stepped in front of him, adjusting the collar of the now one-sleeved coat he wore, making sure it would cover most of his bared chest and stomach against the cold of Hecate since shirts were now problematic for him. “But honestly though, you look pretty fucking intimidating.” It took me that long to realize what I was doing, and the blush spread from my cheeks down to my neck. Too late now, and since I was already there, I swiped to clear some dust from one corner of the coat, stepping back to check my work. 

“Uh, I don't remember promoting you to outfit coordinator,” he laughed.

“Sorry, old habit, and I'm nervous,” I sighed, stomach twisting. “Hey Troy?” 

“Should probably go back to ‘My Lord’ around anyone else, doll. What?” 

“Oh, yeah, of course, but, um…” His eyes were on me, only the ghost of his usual smug smile touching his lips. “I'm alright with being your mechanic, but…” I took a deep breath. “I've got a lot of shit in my past, some people I'd rather not knew I was still around. If I'm going with you, I can't be in the front lines, on broadcasts, any of that shit. That's non-negotiable.” I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I was relieved when he didn’t immediately reject me. 

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “I think we can work that out.”

“Thank you.” It was all I could do to turn back to the door and hope that he didn’t notice the tears burning my eyes.

The reinforcement of Hecate took less than fifteen minutes from the first shot fired from any of the team Tyreen had brought with her. She hadn't packed lightly, bringing thirty of the strongest badass goons I'd ever seen. The moment I'd gotten the all clear and lifted the shield, Tyreen had stormed into the room, ablaze with power and fury. When she saw Troy there had been an actual physical release of pressure in the air, which redoubled as soon as she saw the arm. Her eyes had gone wide, and she'd let out a low, gurgling noise before she ducked to the side, gasping. Troy rushed to her side, and I realized that I was the only cultist in the room. I ducked out quickly behind them into the crowd of my fellow followers. They were all in the middle of screaming their victory and worship, but I felt like I was in a kind of daze. 

Hecate hadn't been the biggest base on Pandora, not even by a long shot, but with Troy’s visit not only was every cultist within throwing distance flocking to the base, but also recruitment numbers had jumped in the weeks leading up to now. The hustle and bustle and worship and bloodletting had been at maximum, and now it was all just… gone. Bodies, whole and in a thousand pieces, were everywhere. Parts of the base looked like they'd been burned to the ground, others like some massive, eldritch hand had just come through and smashed them apart. Hecate had been my home for years now, and it was gone. “You're four for four, Z,” I muttered to myself bitterly.

I moved to a nearby stack of bodies that I knew weren't fellow disciples, and picked up a head still in its helmet but detached from anything else. I checked it, turning it slowly in my hands, but the light gray helmet had no identifying markers, not even a serial number stamped on the inside after I shook the head out. The other bodies were in the same light gray, definitely a uniform, but I couldn't say for whom they worked for. Scowling, I stowed the helmet with my other gear; a mystery for another day.

Tyreen came out of the workshop a few minutes later, told us as we all bowed before her that we’d be staying overnight, that she and the captain of the ship had agreed that the air would be clear enough by morning to land. Then she went back inside, and the shields screeched back into place. No one spoke to me, and I was fine with that. Chicho’s old room was missing a major part of the ceiling, and the snow piled under it was still growing slowly. The bed was clear apart from some dust and a piece of sheet metal that I moved easily. I dropped the bag onto the floor, curled under the blanket, and managed to distract myself long enough to get to sleep, thinking about Troy fucking Calypso the whole time.


	11. Chapter 11

It had been a week since the ship had dropped to pick us all up, and I hadn't seen Troy the whole time. It wasn’t that I was expecting him to go out of his way to talk to me, he was busy co-oping a God status with his sister, but I’d kind of hoped that I’d at least run into him once or twice. The ship was massive though, being the central hub of authority of the Calypso twins, so he probably wasn’t just avoiding me. Probably. I was just bored, and nervous that I’d accidentally stumble into an area I wasn’t supposed to be, so other than when I needed to piss or get food, I kept to the closet of a cabin I’d been given when we’d arrived. 

It was there that I sat when the first person to talk to me in six days opened the door. I had my back to the wall, legs stretched out as far as they could in the cramped space, bouncing an imperfect ball of some kind of resin or glue that had been inside one of the food bars I’d picked up on one of my trips out. I hadn’t eaten the bar, and had sworn off the brand for the rest of forever, but shit, I’d already taken apart my ECHO and put it back together so many times that I could do it in my sleep now. The door had a lock on the interior, a luxury from what I’d heard, but that didn’t really matter when the person outside could override it. I’d just tossed the ball at the floor in front of the door, trying to perfect its arc so that it would bounce up, hit the door, and plunk back into my hand, and I was getting pretty damn close. Instead, it hit the floor, the door opened, and it bounced off the legs of some drained-looking fucker in a dark hooded robe. One of the higher ups. “Shit, sorry,” I coughed, snatching the ball up without thinking and pushing to my feet, cramped knees popping. 

The person just gave me a patronizing sneer before gestured to me, and said, “Follow.” Then they turned to walk away without waiting for me. Swearing at my cramping body, I stumbled out after them, almost having to jog to keep up with their brisk pace.

We came to a set of double doors that I’d seen a couple times on my trips through the ship, but promptly avoided because of the armed guards. As we approached, one of them moved to push their door open while the other glared us down. My guide stopped, turned, and moved away again. I almost turned to follow, but one of the guards snapped, “No, dumbass, through here.” The room beyond was dark, cool air pouring out from the opening and I gulped as I moved forward. The door shut behind me pretty much as soon as I was through, leaving me in total darkness, cold and unforgiving.

“Take ten steps forward, disciple. No more, no less,” a voice ordered me, echoing around the room. I did as I was told, trying to figure out where the speaker would be standing in relation to me. The quality of the echoes made it impossible to tell, they could have been right in front of me for all I knew, so I gave up there, but I didn’t let my focus drop. There was no point in keeping my eyes open, so I shut them, a physical representation of abandoning that line of senses. The cold air stung at my nose, blowing in from somewhere to my left. On the breeze, there was some soft scent, a sweetness that made my stomach gurgle a little. I stood perfectly still, each breath slow, measured, arms relaxed at my sides.

The only warning I had was the sound of rushing air and I darted to the left, foot flashing out to connect with my attacker. It was grabbed and I flipped quickly so I wouldn’t be thrown off balance. My attacker yanked and I moved with it, driving them into the ground and pinning them under my knee. In the dark, punching blindly at the ground hoping to hit their face was a good way to break all my fingers, so I slammed my fists down into my attackers sternum. They let out a gasping cough, but even though I’d knocked the breath out of them, they threw themself back with enough force that I was knocked to the side. I scrambled to find my balance again, managing to spring to my feet in time and curl my body in to protect my face and chest. The punches came, blocked by the thicker parts of my arms, and when I'd gauged my attacker's stance, I exploded out with a sharp roar, latching onto a wrist with either hand and flipping the attacker around, driving them back to the floor. One of my knees planted firmly in the small of their back and I used the other to steady myself on the floor as they bucked ferociously beneath me. My blood was pumping, the primal rush of rage and adrenaline screaming at me to strike out with my teeth, to start tearing at the person beneath me. I reined it in enough to only let out an absolutely inhuman snarl and yanked back on both the arms. My attacker's back bowed and creaked beneath me.

“Stop, stop!” they screamed. I recognized the voice. I dropped them instantly, hands moving to cover my agape mouth. The room lit all at once and I blinked against the sudden light down at the form beneath me. She was a tall dark woman who would have been skinny if it wasn't for the cords of muscle cultivated by years of intense training. Her red and purple dreads were sprawled on the floor around her, long, tattoo covered fingers massaging her back where my knee had been. She opened one eye, so dark it was nearly black, to peer up at me, a wicked smile on her on her lips, painted the same shade of purple as her hair.

“Rora?”

“Hi sweetie,” she croaked, then pushed herself up with a groan, turning to the far side of the room from the doors. “See, told you she was good.”

Troy and Queen Tyreen were on a raised platform that glittered gold in the new lighting, each perched on a towering throne of similar material, intricately carved. They each had a pair of night vision goggles, Troy idly spinning his around one of his fingers whole Tyreen let hers hang off the arm of the throne. They both looked amused, and I was suddenly glad that my face was already flushed from battle. Troy’s eyes tracked up and down over me, and he winked. “So, you’re a Huntress too.” It was a statement, not a question. 

I shot a look to the woman, searching for an answer.

She just gave me that smile again, and stepped forward to address the twins. “Yes, my successor, my only successful student.” She turned her focus back to me. “Which reminds me, sweetie, have you found a successor?”

I stared at her, then slowly spread my arms in an all-encompassing gesture. “Does it look like I have?”

She bobbed her head to the side in a shrug. “I suppose not.”

Tyreen cleared her throat, and we turned back to them. Rora went to one knee in a bow, head down, and I followed a beat behind her. “My Queen and Lord Calypso, I offer for your approval Azazel of Athenas. She not only has my full confidence in ability, but also in devotion to both our cause and your protection.”

“You haven’t even spoken to her,” Tyreen pointed out. She didn’t sound angry, just curious.

Rora chuckled, and tilted her face toward me. “Do you have anything I should know about that would contradict what I said?”

My own smile felt just as sharp as hers looked. “Not a thing.” She nodded, placed a hand on my shoulder, and stood, not to help herself up, just to let me know to stay down. She drifted away, and as she did, I heard the Calypsos approaching me. When their shadows fell over me, they stopped, but I still didn’t look up. 

“What do you say, little disciple? Do you pledge your life to us?” Tyreen purred. “Promise your flesh?”

I shivered. “Yes.”

Something metallic came to rest gently on my shoulder, and Troy murmured, “Then, little disciple, we appoint you to our service.”

The sword moved to my other shoulder, and Tyreen slipped one hand out to cup my cheek. “Stand, I think I have my first assignment for you.”

“Oh?” Tyreen’s fingers stayed on me as I rose, lifting my face up gently. My breaths were small and shaking as my eyes tracked back and forth between her and her brother. 

Troy made an affirmative noise, and lifted the sword up and to the side. The thing looked tiny and pathetic clutched in the fist of the massive metal arm. “Build me a bigger fucking sword, this shit looks ridiculous.”

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to GrowlingPeanut for proofing this for me and generally just being lovely


End file.
